


next

by altilis



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 04:56:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13046934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altilis/pseuds/altilis
Summary: Immediately post-TLJ, Hux and Kylo settle an uncertainty between them.





	next

Kylo had knelt to pick something up from the floor of the control room, looked up, and then stilled. He doesn’t move for a long moment, and only when Hux takes a step closer does he tilt his head down. Hux steps into the room now, but Kylo doesn’t look up, not even when Hux slides a hand over the back of his shoulder. His fingertips stop short of touching Kylo’s neck, lingering at the edge where his cape and the collar of his tunic meet. 

“They’re gone,” Hux says softly. “The cavern’s empty.” 

“I know.” Kylo stands; the hand falls away, but Hux doesn’t: he stands close to Kylo’s side now, watching him with an expectant gaze. Kylo meets it, briefly, before sweeping out of the room. “Return everything to the _Supremacy_ ,” he barks out to the troopers, “we’re done here.”

 

Back at the shuttle, Hux takes a seat at one of the benches along the wall, watching Kylo as the ship spreads its wings and takes off. Kylo doesn’t seem to care that he’s there - no surprise - but he also doesn’t care that Hux could be watching. One elbow braced on the armrest of the chair, his face drops into his hand, hair falling forward over his cheek. His whole body tightens up, trembles without a sound, and then he’s still again.

 

Kylo sweeps off the command shuttle with purpose, long legs crossing miles, and Hux quickens his pace to not be left in the dust. The work ahead of him has only just begun, now that he has half the fleet he started with and a broken _Mega_ -class flagship. “The rest of the fleet will have to be notified,” he says as they stalk down the corridors, still in a flurry with emergency personnel and engineers, “and we will need to request more support and an in-situ construction apparatus --”

“I’ll leave that to you.”

Of course he will. Hux wonders if anything will actually change now that Kylo has taken the Supreme Leader mantle for himself, or whether he’ll keep the same hands-off approach and unreasonable expectations of his predecessor. “And what will you do?” he asks - stupidly - and immediately blames the question on his own fatigue.

“Rest.”

“Excuse me?”

But Kylo keeps walking, only stopping when they reach the relatively unharmed, quiet wing of private quarters. Snoke’s sprawl of rooms lies at the end of the corridor, but Kylo stops near a non-descript door closer to the lift. He takes another beat before turning to look at Hux. “Do you need anything else from me?”

Hux blinks at him, disarmed by the question at first, but then he runs through the checklist in his mind: he has the authority he needs to make sure everything doesn’t fall apart. “...no, I suppose not.” He watches as Kylo punches in a code to the door, and when it hisses open, he steps in to a sparsely-furnished sitting room. It’s his quarters, Hux realizes, just as plain and drab as on the Finalizer. “You’re actually resting,” he says in disbelief.

Kylo snorts as the cape slides off his shoulders and hangs itself on a hook on the wall. “I need to save my strength. What did you think I was going to do?” 

“I’m not foolish enough to answer that question.” Hux glances down the length of the corridor towards Snoke’s rooms, wondering what they were going to do with those now, and then back to Kylo, who has started to pull his tunic off. Unabashed, as always. 

“...you don’t have any guards,” he mentions to Kylo, who looks over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. 

“Guards?”

“You’re the Supreme Leader. Snoke had his Praetorian, but since the girl murdered them, too, we’ll have to form a new - ”

“No, we don’t.” Kylo lets the tunic slides from his shoulders, and seeing the bare skin of Kylo’s torso makes Hux feel ridiculous, for some reason, as he stands out in the corridor. “I’m strong enough without them.”

“You just told me that you’ll be asleep for who knows how long - ”

“If you’re so worried, general, then come in and take watch for me.” He moves into another room, and Hux is compelled by his ridiculous statement into the cabin. Hux crosses the threshold into sitting room and turns to see Kylo framed by the arc of the bedroom doorway, the muscles of his back flexing as he shrugs off his ribbed sleeves. 

For a moment Hux doesn’t say anything, taking it instead to appreciate the view and the silence and postponing his calls for the rest of the day. When Kylo sits moves to sit on the edge of his bed, Hux moves forward into the doorway, but not a step closer. “Aren’t you afraid?” he asks, watching as Kylo rubs his hands over his face.

“Of what? You?” Kylo lifts his head to look at Hux. His eyes are dark and his expression somber, the rage replaced wholesale by weariness.

Hux inclines his head. “Of me - killing you in your sleep.”

“Go ahead.”

Hux stares at him.

“Go on,” Kylo says, gestures; the blaster pistol from his belt unhooks, slides into Hux’s hand, which is pulled upwards until the barrel levels with Kylo’s gaze. “Pull the trigger, if you want.”

His finger’s on the trigger; his hand is steady. “Ren.”

“Here’s your chance, General. The galaxy at your fingertips. The Order listens to you more than me already.” 

He knows what killing Kylo would give him; the idea had flitted through his mind already when he had seen Kylo lying on the throne room floor amongst bodies and debris and flame. Since then he has also seen more confounding mysticism, illusions with enough heft to drive a man insane, if the other insane probabilities of three cruisers destroying an entire fleet hadn’t already.

Hux pulls his hand down, and after an initial resistance nothing more pulls him back. He holsters his pistol again. “You’re the Supreme Leader,” he reminds Kylo, “and at the very least, you are the only weapon to match that girl, which I presume they still have. You know how much I hate to be ill-equipped.”

Kylo chuckles, a deep rumble that highlights the smile at the edge of his mouth, and he kicks off his boots. “A leader and a weapon? Should I be insulted?”

“Do you feel insulted?”

Kylo looks up at him, long enough that Hux wonders if he’s looking into the nooks and crannies of Hux’s mind, searching for an answer. It wouldn’t be the first time; it won’t be the last. “No,” he finally says as he stretches out on the bed, “I don’t.”

“Good.” Hux turns towards the sitting room again and steps out to look around. “I presume you’ve got a console; I can deliver my commands from here. We should be able to start repairs in less than a day - ”

“Hux.” 

He looks over his shoulder to see Kylo looking at him with one half-open eye. “Yes?”

“Don’t forget to take your own rest when you’re done, or else you’ll look even weaker standing next to me.” Kylo says. The condescension is familiar, enough that Hux can hear another note beneath it - concern? 

“I shall try, Supreme Leader,” Hux replies in mock-deference. The door to the bedroom hisses shut between them. Hux sits down at the console at the far end of the room and starts the long, slow work of tying the First Order together for the next three days.

In the lull between two calls, as the secretary tries to connect him to yet another commander, Hux glances back towards the door and turns over what Kylo had said: _next to me_. Foolish, Hux thinks: foolish for Kylo to say and stoke the possibility, and foolish for him to put any stock in it. This is how empires fall - in-fighting, splintering of command, illusions of loyalty faltering on false promises.

_Next to me._

\--

He stirs awake on the standard-issue couch to fingers brushing through his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [tumblr](http://cutequirk.tumblr.com).


End file.
